HP Where's There's the Will
by udderpd
Summary: This takes place directly after the train leaves for Hogwarts at the end of book seven which is required reading. I have decided to add some more so it is not complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer; **J. K. Rowling owns the Harry Potter Universe all other claimants to anything to do with the H.P. story are simply hangers on to her glory. I thank her for allowing us mere mortals to play in her world and I promise that while I have Harry in my care nothing too bad will happen to him.

**Authors Note. **These events take place immediately after the Epilogue (titled Nineteen Years Later) of H. P. and the Deathly Hallows, it won't make a lot of sense if you have not read it, and they will be fully canon compliant.

However if JKR hadn't inflicted Ron on Hermione I wouldn't have felt obliged to write this.

**Harry Potter Where there's the will.**

**Day One. **

Seeing the Ferret on platform nine and three-quarters had stirred something up deep inside of Harry, one way or another he had suffered for seventeen years, and if you were honest, you could say that he had fought for at least five of those, and for what? Draco, who had orchestrated the invasion of Hogwarts leading to the murder of Dumbledore; was stood over there, bold as brass and twice as ugly, and you can forget all of the crap about 'Dumbledore was dieing so it made no difference'. Besides which Draco had caused him, his friends and a load of other people a lot of personal aggravation; deliberately; maliciously; the slime ball was a total…well he didn't like to use those kind of word's even to himself.

Harry had it on very good authority that it had cost Lucius three million galleons so that he, his wife and his son had to all intents and purposes walked free.

Now he had it, also on the same good authority that the older blond pureblood fanatic slime ball was throwing his Galleons around the Ministry again and wheedling his way back in to the top echelons. One thing that Harry was absolutely certain of for himself; was that whatever Lucius was up to, it would be for the benefit of the Malfoys and not the wizarding world.

Ginny was over talking to her brother Ron, Harry turned to look at his best friend, and asked quietly, "Is everything alright, you look…a bit depressed?"

She looked at him with sad brown eyes and answered, also quietly, "No, everything isn't alright, and it might be the time but this definitely isn't the place to talk about it."

Ron and Ginny's conversation had also become quiet until Ron called across, "Ginny and I are going to see Mum for a few hours, can you look after the kids for a bit?"

"Of course," Harry called back, "we will look after them for the afternoon. I will take our car and you can take Gin in yours; we'll probably take them to F-o-r-t-e-s-c-u-e-s before we bring them home later." Harry had spelled out the name of the ice-cream shop.

Hugo and Lilly were bouncing and she said smugly, "Aunt Hermione says that we can both spell better than you could when you started Hogwarts and we both know very well that you spelt Fortescue's, and that is the name of the ice-cream shop in Diagon Alley, so why did you bother to spell it?"

"We'll see you later." Ginny called with a smirk, as she hurried away through the wall back into muggle London.

As the four of them were making their way back to Harry's car he remarked, "I don't know if I will forgive you for selling me out to my own daughter; but it does look like we might be able to have a little chat sooner rather than later."

The conversation in the car was fairly innocuous and when they reached the ice-cream shop Lilly and Hugo asked to do, what they had been asking to do for over a year, namely to sit at a table on their own. The pair was very pleased when for the first time they were allowed to do so, although the children's table was only about fifteen feet from their parents.

Harry told Lilly and Hugo that they could order whatever they liked, of course Hermione had to add, 'but don't make yourselves sick'.

After they had all been served Hermione said, "Harry, I didn't recognise that charm, what was it?"

"It was a new privacy charm I concocted for myself; if anybody tries to listen to what we are saying they will hear us talking about the children. So, are you going to tell me what's bothering you?"

The bushy haired woman sighed and started, "I have been holding this in for far too long, if I look like I am going to cry or start to rant you can cast a cheering or calming charm on me; I suppose that it is a long and not very happy story; please just let me tell it and try not to interrupt. Also as you are well aware, Ron will not allow me to work otherwise I could sort out most of this mess on my own; I don't know what he earns but I don't think that it can be a great deal.

"You were right fifteen years ago when you said that you didn't think that I should marry Ron, thinking about it now he treated me like crap all through school and he still does. I really tried with him in sixth year and what did he do? Apart from being generally obnoxious and going off to snog Lavender in the middle of the common room. Whilst we were searching in what should have been our seventh year, he spent more time away from us sulking than he was with us, and why was I trying to be so nice to him when he was being so awful?

Her eyes went distant and then refocused, "Do you think that he was using a love potion on me? And for that matter did Ginny use one on you? You were totally so not interested and then suddenly you were all over her, what was going on there.

"Let me start from the beginning; basically, ever since the wedding, life has been one long fight; now the fights are getting worse and I think that he is playing around with Lavender Brown.

"Obviously you know that you gave us ten thousand Galleons as a wedding present, you said that it was to set up our home; he spent seven of the ten within a fortnight on three brooms, that's about thirty five thousand pounds. He's only got one bum, what on earth does he want three identical brooms for? It's a good job that I am good at charms because that is what keeps the furniture together; we never have the money to buy anything new because he just seems to squander any that I don't spend quickly on food.

"You know that I am not too bothered about clothes for myself but it is hells own job trying to get enough together to buy some for the children; thank goodness for you taking us shopping occasionally. I don't know if you have noticed that he keeps his own wardrobe up to date, he never seems to neglect himself and he always seems to find the money for what he wants to do, I have no idea where he gets it.

"We won't talk about his table manners, you know what they are like, and I try to get the children out of the room when he is eating, they will never learn to behave properly otherwise. But all of the time he is in the house he behaves like a total slob, he makes Homer Simpson look suave, elegant and cultured.

"Now I don't want you loosing your temper over this but from something he said the other day I think that Ginny is playing around as well."

Hermione hesitated, watching Harry's reaction, his expression had been fairly neutral all through her confession and it didn't alter as he said, "I know.

"I became very suspicious so I had her followed, she is playing around with Dean Thomas and I can confirm that Ron is playing around with Lavender Brown. My solicitor has enough photographic evidence to get us both divorced from our other halves. So you have told me the problem, what do you want to do about it?"

She started trembling so Harry took her hand, comforting her, and she said, "I don't seem to be able to do anything, Ron told me, 'Muggle born witches or wizards cannot sue for divorce from pure blood witches and wizards'. So it appears that I am stuck with him."

Harry squeezed her hand and said, "Stop panicking. After you were married at your local church in Ashford; did you and Ron go to the Ministry to sign the forms and register your wedding?"

"Harry, what are you talking about?" Hermione was looking at him as if he was not feeling well.

For the first time since the conversation had started Harry smiled at her, "Hermione Granger not researching all of the facts, what is the world coming to?" He poked his tongue out at her and went on, "If pureblood witches or wizards get married in a muggle church they must either get married again by wizarding custom, or they must pay five hundred Galleons to register their marriage at the Ministry.

"Now, being as how I wasn't invited to your wizarding marriage ceremony, I guess that you didn't have one. So unless you have registered the wedding you are only married in the muggle world. Ron is not permitted to register it on his own; you both have to be in the office for you both to sign and the signatures have to be witnessed by an independent third party, for your marriage to be legal wizard wise.

"Don't kid yourself that getting divorced from him will be easy; the purebloods will kick up a huge ruckus and threaten you with who knows what. Really they are all but toothless, and you have me backing you and my solicitor is a goblin who will take great delight in tearing the bigots to bits.

"So in a perfect world; what would you like to happen now? Absolute truth, all of your cards on the table you are being offered a chance to, if you want to, totally change your life; you know what is possible what does my best friend, ever since I was a first year with crappy spelling, want?"

She smiled shyly at him, "You're going to save me from the Troll again, aren't you?"

He poked his tongue out again and sniggered, "A beautiful young girl with bushy brown hair lovely brown eyes accused me of having a saving people thing…so that would be a yes."

She looked at him hopefully, "In an ideal world I would like; you to divorce Ginny; me to divorce Ron; us to get married; we take all of the children and go to live somewhere in peace and quiet. Then I want us to set about practicing a lot and making loads more kids."

None of that seemed to surprise him however he looked quizzical, "Ron said that you couldn't have any more children?"

She giggled, "All of his family keep ribbing him because we only have two, and…well…he wouldn't blame himself would he. Actually I have been taking muggle birth control pills my mother gets for me and I cast an almost undetectable sterilization charm on him."

"Right…it would be a good thing to remove that charm, he might well get Lavender pregnant and that could only help you with your divorce, if it started to drag on.

"Ok back to the main topic…everybody knows that I have three houses." Harry said and Hermione nodded, "Well that's not entirely true, I actually have another two which only the goblins and a few very trustworthy house elves know about."

"She smiled knowingly and he continued, "There is a completely undetectable ten bed-roomed house, overlooking the Mediterranean, it's near Narbonne in the South of France, and it's not very far from Beauxbatons.

"I also have a similarly sized unplottable place in New England, near 'Y Cyfareddol Ysgol,' which as I bet you know is the oldest and best magic school in North America. In a lot of ways it is probably better than Hogwarts; it runs a full syllabus of Masters Courses; however I will warn you that it is bloody cold there in the winter.

"As for taking all of the children, they should have the situation explained to them and then it would be up to them to choose who they want to live with, even Lilly and Hugo are bright enough to make informed decisions. In the end I suspect that James will want to stay with his mother because he idolises the twins, the other four I would expect to come with us. Ultimately if the worst comes to the worst and there is too much fuss about us having the children who want to live with us, we will have to take the sixth way out and we will teach them ourselves."

Harry then leant across the table and whispered in her ear, "If all else fails, I also have an unplottable island in the Maldives, the goblins will build us whatever kind of house we want to live in.

"However, as things stand at the moment, I think that we are a long way from that, and now we should do a little shopping and then go to see the goblins; whilst we are doing our business in the bank, someone will take Hugo and Lilly to see the dragons."

Hermione's eyes had gone wide at the mention of the dragons, but Harry took down the privacy ward and said, "Oi! Young persons, do you want to go to Gringotts and see the dragons?"

Harry totally ignored the excited barrage of questions that the children were throwing at him as he went and paid for the food and ice-cream they had eaten; they had all had lunch whilst they were talking. He then offered his arm to Hermione and each taking one of the children's hands they headed off to Glad Rags.

"Why are we going in here?" Hugo moaned.

"Because we are men and that means that we are not allowed to have too much pleasure all at once; the girls all say that it spoils us; strangely enough they also tell us that it does not spoil girls, it only makes them better." Harry told him, very seriously, "So we have had ice-cream and you are going to see the dragons; ergo, because you are a boy, we must do something not quite so nice in between, and most girls like dresses, so here we are." Harry's explanation certainly pleased both of the females and strangely enough it seemed to, if not satisfy confuse Hugo as well.

The quartet were in the dress shop for about an hour and when they left Hugo had on a new cloak which had cooling and heating charms built in; Lilly was wearing new dress robes and shoes. Hermione was wearing a completely new outfit, including shoes and underwear; he had called Winky and all of the clothes they had been wearing she took to where the Potters were currently living, in Chudley Salterton. The half dozen robes with matching shoes, which were the beginning of Hermione's new wardrobe, would, for the time being, be put out of sight, Harry had hinted to the little elf, that France would probably be best place at this time.

When they left the dress shop the four of them went straight to the bank; Harry asked Gnolhamer, his solicitor, if he could arrange for someone to take the children on a tour of the bank ensuring that they saw the dragons.

As soon as the children had left on their tour Harry outlined to Gnolhamer what they wanted to do; with Hermione quietly filling in when required and answering questions when she was asked, they even included their thoughts about love potions. Harry noticed that Hermione was quite nervous in a situation in which she would have been very comfortable fifteen years previously; it seemed that Ron constantly belittling her status had eroded some of her self confidence.

At the conclusion of the explanation Gnolhamer activated a signal cube on his desk and two middle-aged women came into the office the goblin introduced the first one as Healer Abbott and he explained their suspicions about love potions. Mrs. Abbott took blood samples from the two of them she told Gnolhamer that she would give him the results of the test in less than twenty four hours, and then she left.

Gnolhamer had passed the other woman a sheet of parchment when she had come in and he said, "It seems that Mrs Granger Weasley's situation is most urgent, so I will pass the task over to Mrs. Elen O'Neil; she will expedite matters. What time scale are we talking about?" The last question had been aimed directly at Mrs. O'Neil.

The woman had read through the parchment and looked at her watch, it was two o'clock, then she said, "I can have this muggle wedding annulled by five this afternoon, and the only people who will know about it are in this room; that is assuming that Mr. Potter is financing it?"

Hermione and Harry looked startled and he said, "I for one didn't expect it to be completed quite that quickly and of course I am financing it. However it is now completely up to Hermione."

"I am also very surprised at the speed, but I am not distressed by it." Hermione said and then she looked straight at Elen and continued, "So only we four will know that I am no longer married to him?"

"Let me explain something." Mrs. O'Neil said kindly, "As far as the wizarding world is concerned you are not married, your husband could quite easily go off and marry a pureblood girl and officially nobody would give a tinker's cuss; however there are people who would take a very dim view of it. My status is the same as Harry's that is I am a half blood and although it is not my normal field I have gone through all of these rules and regulations thoroughly and quite frankly most of them are relatively new and they stink.

"You have said that you would like to keep your children, well the muggle authorities are no problem, they will award you the children, but unless something drastic is done, if he wants to have them then he will be allowed to, and from what I have heard of his mother…"

Pondering Harry asked, "You said that most of this is relatively new, what has happened to bring it about?"

"You both know that three quarters of the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century's were screwed up by wars, both muggle and magical, it has given the old pureblood families the opportunity to alter a lot of rules to suit themselves." The kindly lady said, "What we really need is a return of the 'Uchel Amddiffynnydd,' he could disband the Wizengamot and re-establish it as it was originally meant to be."

"Gnolhamer, where have I heard the name 'Uchel Amddiffynnydd' I am sure that it was from you?"

The goblin replied, "You have heard it from me because it is one of the titles to which you may lay claim.

"The 'Uchel Amddiffynnydd' is the Chief Protector of the wizarding world; Lord of Caer Myrddin which is Merlin's Castle as in the original Merlin and he is also known as 'Y Gwyn Brudiwr' which translates as 'the White Wizard'.

"He is the overall caretaker of the magical world in the British Isles; if things were as they should be there would also be four regional Amddiffynnydd, these are protectors as well, one each for England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The other four positions have lapsed, ergo at this time Mr. Potter you are all five and one of the major things that the pureblood bigots have been trying, so far unsuccessfully, to undo is the fact that the regional posts are quasi matrilineal."

"Yes!" Exclaimed Hermione, punching the air, "The position passes to daughters, through the mother; so the eldest daughter will be the next one, and family names get lost through marriage.

"But what happens if there are no daughters?"

Both Harry and the witch were smiling at Hermione's excitement and she said, "As you know the pureblood bigots fantasize about sons, and there is quite strong evidence to support the theory that they abort most female foetuses. If there are no daughters for two generations then the position dies and it is up to 'the White Wizard' to appoint a new regional protector.

"Now because there has been no White Wizard for nearly two hundred years, the secondary regional positions have died out as well. You do realise that because he currently holds all five positions, at this moment, in the wizarding world, Harry can do practically anything he wants to.

"I will give you one more piece of advice and then I will go and see to Hermione's divorce. My advice is that you should have your four regional Amddiffynnydd ready when you disband the Wizengamot.

"Goodbye, I hope to see you both again soon."

Elen left and Gnolhamer said, "Perhaps before we continue I should give you a lesson in the history, formation and duty of the Wizengamot, it is something that is now sadly missing from the Hogwarts syllabus because about two hundred years ago its teaching was outlawed. What the pureblood fanatics of that time forgot was that the goblins who are involved with hereditary estates also follow human genealogy and the rules governing the magical world, for other legitimate reasons.

"The Wizengamot was first formed in 925ad by Merlin, the first Lord of Caer Myrddin and the four Great Grandparents of the founders of Hogwarts, I am not certain as to how many Greats there should be, but we can find out if it ever becomes necessary. The four would represent Albion (England), Hibernia (Ireland), Strathern (Scotland) and Brycheiniog (Wales): because these were the areas where the four founders of Hogwarts families originated from.

"The original charter was relatively simple; it was to have fifty one members; a Protector plus eleven members representing each of the four countries, also the Minister of Magic and the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

"The rules governing succession are mother to eldest daughter, if there is no daughter then it can pass to the eldest son; it can only go mother to son twice and then the position dies; the High Protector would then hand the position to another family.

"The Wizengamot was charged with running the wizard world to the benefit of all magical beings; and also with establishing a Ministry of Magic with the same remit. The fifty first member is of course 'the White Wizard, he is the only one who is allowed to choose his successor, not all sons are equal to the task; and if he thinks it necessary he can choose a daughter.

"Amongst others there is an important amendment from 1,273 which states that in the event that the 'Uchel Amddiffynnydd' was to disband the Wizengamot only the top four levels of the Ministry would be immediately disbanded. This would allow the part of the Ministry that actually does the work to continue to function on a day to day basis, albeit being overseen by the 'Uchel Amddiffynnydd' and possibly the four regional Protectors. The White Wizard of the day decided on the wisdom of this after he had disbanded the Wizengamot in 1,270 and subsequently spent three years getting the Ministry back into a functioning organisation."

The goblin had finished and another part of the old Hermione was back, "Please, I need to make some notes." She pleaded.

Gnolhamer seemed to ignore her plea and pressed the cube on this desk again, then he said something in Gobledegook, three minutes later another goblin entered and passed Gnolhamer a roll of very old scrolls and what looked like half a dozen school text books, finally the solicitor said, "I have taken the liberty of bringing these from the vault of the White Wizard, the scrolls are the original covenant, with subsequent additions, that was made between Myrddin and the wizard world.

"It would be advisable if the original did not leave the safety of the bank.

"The books are over two hundred years old, they are copies of the second and fifth year text books from that time; it was for part of the History of Magic course of that period; it deals with the formation of the Ministry of Magic and the Wizengamot. And for your information there are another dozen copies of this book in the White Wizard's vault."

Hermione's eyes were as wide as Harry had ever seen them and he asked, "Do you know if the covenant can be copied?"

"If I remember correctly only the White Wizard can copy the covenant," his solicitor told him, "and he must personally give specific permission for anyone other than a protector to read even the copies of it."

Harry made two copies of the covenant and indicated to the goblin to return the original to his vault; he kept everything out of Hermione's reach as he asked her, "I know that Gnolhamer would love it if we ripped the wizarding world apart and rebuilt it, is it something you would like to do?"

As Hermione was considering her reply Gnolhamer said, "Because you have copied the scrolls you have provisionally claimed the title of 'the White Wizard, you must officially claim the title of 'Uchel Amddiffynnydd,' within forty eight hours. The easiest way for you to do that is for you to enter Hogwarts and declare yourself to be 'Y Gwyn Brudiwr', the White Wizard. It is likely that the castle and several other buildings in the magical world will react to this declaration, if you fail to make the claim I dread to think of the consequences, for all of us.

"However if you let me be there when you disband the Wizengamot, Gringotts will give you free banking for five years, even if you ask me to help you."

Hermione's eyes were coming alive again, "Something has to be done and although this is a bit drastic; it has the advantage of removing at least ninety-five percent of the problem in one fell swoop. So who are you going to have as the four countries protectors?" She was fluttering her eye lashes at him.

Grinning he said, "What do you think about Mrs O'Neil representing Ireland; Fleur Weasley representing England, And you representing Wales? Of course Minerva, as head of Hogwarts, I would like to represent Scotland."

Harry sat whilst Hermione and Gnolhamer considered what he was suggesting; the goblin started to smile, "A pure blood headmistress, they will think 'fine', a half blood solicitor, they won't be too happy about but they will tolerate it; a French half Vela, they won't like it but she is very charming so it will probably work; and a muggle born who will have just divorced a pure blood…I will pay you to be there, they will go…how do you say…bananas."

She looked at Harry and said quietly, "I know that you want to make a point, but do you want to make this much of a point?"

"We two fought a war against blood supremacists, I know that Voldemort was their leader but really he was an incidental, and if anything what we now have is as bad as before and rapidly becoming worse and they are digging themselves in." Harry was looking as serious as she had ever seen him. "If we do this we are going to sort this mess out once and for all. Elen, Fleur, you and I will meet with Minerva tomorrow morning at Hogwarts; the Wizengamot is due to meet the day after and it will be the last time for the vast majority of them."

Hermione nodded and as Elen came back into the room Gnolhamer was saying, "It is not a problem for us, but you do realise that two of your proposed protectors' work for Gringotts?"

Harry smiled, "It won't hurt to have the money on our side, and yes I did realise it. Can you call Fleur please?"

Gnolhamer called for Fleur and Elen told them quickly that Hermione was now Ms. Hermione Jane Granger, again; the expression of relief on Hermione's face was a pleasure to see and her demeanour moved up another notch.

As the half Vela entered the room the goblin said to her, "You are going to hear some things here today that you must not repeat to anyone until you know that the time is right; it will be no more than three days."

When Fleur agreed, Harry and Hermione explained what was going on, including Harry's intension to divorce Ginny, and then Harry explained about the White Wizard and the Amddiffynnydd to Elen and Fleur' he then asked them if they would be protectors? To Harry's relief after several questions for clarification both of the women agreed to the White Wizard's request.

Feeling a sense of formality Harry made the three women stand in front of him and first facing Hermione he asked, "Hermione Granger do you accept the responsibility of Amddiffynnydd Brycheiniog…protector of Wales…Y Rhudd Dewines…the Red Witch?"

Hermione also sensing the occasion replied, "I accept this honour for myself and my descendants."

The pair's magic flared as a red cloak appeared on her shoulders (It appeared to be cloth made from liquid Rubies.) and they all wondered if the powerful flare would be felt throughout the wizarding world.

Next he faced Elen he asked, "Elen O'Neil do you accept the responsibility of Amddiffynnydd Hibernia…protector of Ireland…Y Gwyrdd Dewines…the Green Witch?"

Elen smiled at him and, like Hermione, said, "I accept this honour for myself and my descendants."

Again the pair's magic flared as a green cloak appeared on her shoulders (It appeared to be cloth made from flowing fine Emeralds.) and once more they all wondered if the powerful flare would be felt throughout the wizarding world.

Lastly he turned to Fleur and asked, "Fleur Weasley do you accept the responsibility of Amddiffynnydd Albion…protector of England…Y Melyn Dewines…the Yellow Witch?"

Fleur's smile appeared to be a bit nervous and she said, "Yellow is not a good colour for me but for the good of everyone; I accept this honour for myself and my descendants."

For the third time the magic flared as a yellow cloak appeared on her shoulders (This time it appeared to be cloth made from liquid gold.) again they all wondered if the powerful flare would be felt throughout the wizarding world.

The first person to speak was Gnolhamer and he asked, "How do you all feel?"

Elen answered, "I feel somewhat more powerful, but apart from that I feel about the same."

The other two girls were nodding in agreement and Harry said, "I feel just the same, as well."

Hermione was looking quizzical; she touched her cloak with her right index finger and said, "Hide." The cloak vanished, next she said, "I am the Red Witch." Her cloak reappeared and she had a huge smile on her face, "Hide; now isn't the time to test such things but I bet that these cloaks have a serious protection charm on them as well."

Fleur now had a big smile, "This kind of yellow I like and it really suits me."

The two other witches had just hidden their cloaks when Lilly and Hugo came bounding in; to say that they were excited was a huge understatement and Harry asked them to be quiet for a few minutes. He conjured two chairs for the pair to sit on and turned his attention back to the three witches.

He made two more copies of the covenant and handed one copy to each of the ladies along with a copy of the text book, he kept the forth one for himself as well as the other text-books. Then he asked if one of them could contact Minerva and tell her that they would be visiting Hogwarts at nine fifteen in the morning; Elen assured him that it would be her pleasure also telling him that she wouldn't reveal the purpose of their visit.

The pleading started as soon as the four of them had left the bank and in short order Harry and Hermione had agreed to take Lilly and Hugo along to Hogwarts. The ride to Chudley Salterton was filled with the children's tale of their tour of the bank, Lilly appeared to be quite enamoured by the dragons, whereas Hugo admitted to having been terrified. Harry had assured the lad that being terrified of dragons was actually quite sensible; being overconfident around dragons would probably get you killed.

When they arrived at Harry's home it was to be greeted by an annoyed looking Winky who handed Harry a note; he read it out to the others;

_'Hi All, We have gone to a Wake for one of mum's cousins. We will be back late sometime tomorrow you can look after the kids. Love G. & R.'_

The children were delighted and dashed off to play whilst Hermione smiled and said, "If it wasn't so convenient I would be annoyed." Then she giggled.

She followed him to his study; he shut the door behind them then turned and said, "Do you t…" the poor boy couldn't continue because he had her tongue trying to remove his tonsils. It took about a minute and a half before she let him up for air, however she only gave him about ten seconds before she was doing it again, this time when she finished kissing him she just buried her face in his neck.

"Thank you for saving me." She said, "I have wanted to do that since we were in Fortescue's and you promised me you were going to rescue me from another Troll."

Harry chuckled, "I brought you in here to try and work up the courage to kiss you, and you sort of usurped the whole thing, that's not very ladylike you know."

"Oh, I've decided to give up being a lady around you; I have also decided that I want to sleep with you tonight." She said with a wicked smile.

He looked pensive, "As much as I would enjoy that, it wouldn't surprise me if Ginny came home in the middle of the night and it wouldn't do for her to catch us making like bunny rabbits; at this moment I am still married to her, but in three nights…" She wanted him to stop talking and so she was kissing him again. "We also have things we should do this evening." He said in a break for air, "Like at least read the covenant." He managed to get in during the next break; she was having difficulty stopping because he was kissing her back quite thoroughly.

There was a pounding on the door so they broke apart and straightened their clothes, Hermione sat at the large desk with her scrolls in front of her and Harry answered the door. Hugo exploded into the room followed more sedately by Lilly who said, in her, 'I am being refined despite the moron who is with me,' voice, "Winky asked us to inform you that it would be dinner time shortly, however 'Hugo hollow legs' could wait and so he behaved like Uncle Ron." Then she started giggling.

"Lilly! You shouldn't say things like that." Harry admonished.

"Why not?" Hugo asked, "We all know what he is like and I am sorry for behaving the same way, I'll try not to do it again but I am hungry."

Hugo's apology having been accepted they all made their way to the dining room.

After dinner although the children were still excited they were put to bed, the house elves had collected night clothes from the visitors home and it turned out that excited or not they were still very tired and were soon sound asleep.

Hermione really wanted to spend the evening snogging Harry senseless, but he was punishing her by forcing her to read copies of some priceless parchment and a two hundred year old book.

After about an hour she started giggling and when he asked her what the problem was she blushed and said, "It occurred to me how our positions have reversed; me wanting to skive off and snog you and you forcing me to study."

"Don't kid yourself, I want to skive off and snog you too, but we must have this information in our heads' because tomorrow the British wizarding world might well start to come apart and we must be ready to catch it."

She looked at him for several minutes and then she leant over, gave him a small kiss and then said sulkily, "Just because I know it, it doesn't mean that I have to like it."

Two hours later they both decided that they knew as much of the information as they were going to learn that evening and so they decided to go to bed. Having shrunk their copies of the covenant and the text books they each put them into one of their pockets, they left the study and headed up stairs to bed.

He kissed her goodnight outside her room and headed into his; ten minutes later he had just climbed into bed when there was a small knock on the door, "Come in." he called. Hermione came in, in her dressing gown, "Did you not want me?" she asked with a slight hitch in her voice.

"I wanted you more than I have ever wanted anyone else…ever; if I had done anything else other than that small kiss we would be making love now." Was his reply.

"Oh." She said with a small smile, she had only moved a few feet into his bed room, "I thought that that might be what it was." She undid the belt of her dressing gown and held it open, the only other thing she had on was a pair of high heeled shoes, smiling she said, "I thought that I would show you what you were going to get." After about ten seconds, she closed and re-belted her dressing gown, whished him pleasant dreams, and with a smile on her lips went back to her room.

That night Harry had some very vivid dreams staring his bushy haired best friend.

**Authors Note:** This story will probably be in three parts. **PLEASE REVIEW**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer; **J. K. Rowling owns the Harry Potter Universe all other claimants to anything to do with the H.P. story are simply hangers on to her glory. I thank her for allowing us mere mortals to play in her world and I promise that while I have Harry in my care nothing too bad will happen to him.

**Authors Note. **So here is the second part I hope that you enjoy it.

**Day Two. **

Breakfast the next morning was quite strained; there were two people at the table who each thought that they might have upset the other; the situation was exacerbated by two highly intelligent nine year olds', who were all ears.

Hermione sent the pair upstairs to put on smart robes instead of Jeans and then they both said at the same time, "I hope that I didn't upset you last night?"

When the pair had stopped giggling they both realised that nothing was amiss; she admitted to him that she was so used to Ron over reacting to every little thing that she had been really worried; then he confessed to having not wanted to do anything to hurt her feelings.

At just before nine o'clock the four of them met up with Elen and Fleur in the main banking hall of Gringotts and they immediately went to Elen's office where she told them, "Gringotts has an arrangement with the Hogsmeade Post Office to use their Floo connection."

Replying Harry created a Portkey and said, "I have always hated the Floo so let's use this."

Fleur looked doubtful and said, "It should not be possible to use it from here, but we can try."

The six of them touched the sheet of scrap paper, which Harry had made into a portkey, he activated it and they all arrived outside Hogwarts gates; he said, "That was the first time I have tried that so I wasn't going to risk the children by making it take us to the castle doors."

"Come on," Hermione said, to the two shocked looking women, "Harry has saved us walking at least a mile and a half."

Lilly and Hugo's hands were being held quite firmly, all of the way from the gates to the castle doors; it had still been a problem keeping the pair moving in the correct direction.

The six of them entered the castle and the Headmistress was waiting for them on the first stair leading up to the Great Hall, Harry stood up straight and said, "I am Y Gwyn Brudiwr…"

Harry had been going to continue however there had been a tremendous surge of magic and he was clad in a cloak that looked like liquid platinum and trumpets were sounding throughout the castle. Students and Professors were rushing down the staircases and forming up in tiers behind the Headmistress; Victoire, the Head girl who was also Fleur's daughter was beside Minerva together with Harry and Hermione's three other children, they were all on the same stair.

Hermione was beside Harry and she said quietly, "Here goes nothing."

Then in a loud voice she said, "I am the Red Witch!" In another burst of magic she was wearing her red cloak.

It was a very similar occurrence when Elen and Fleur made their respective declarations of status, and an awed hush came over the gathering as Harry explained briefly about Merlin's promise, the formation of the Wizengamot and the Ministry of Magic.

Then Harry beckoned the headmistress forward and asked, "Minerva McGonagall as Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and in keeping with established tradition, do you accept the responsibility of Amddiffynnydd Strathern…protector of Scotland…Y Glas Dewines…the Blue Witch?"

Minerva realised what was happening and she said, "I accept this honour for myself and those following after me."

The pair's magic flared as a blue cloak appeared on her shoulders (It appeared to be cloth made from the finest sapphires.)

It was followed by a final flare which was as intense as the one that had accompanied Harry's declaration; however this one encompassed all five of them, and the fanfare of trumpets rang out again.

A tremendous feeling of hope surged through the assembly and a loud cheer rang out.

When the noise died down Harry said, "Today you have witnessed the beginning of a revolution in the magical world, tomorrow a major step will be taken to redress the imbalance in the wizarding world, and you will learn about the history of it in special History lessons over the next few months."

Whispered conversations had broken out throughout the gathered audience, Harry said quietly to Minerva, "We need to talk and three of us need to talk to our children for a few minutes; so what would you suggest?"

The Headmistress realised that he could order her to do whatever he wanted, but that had never been Harry's way; she gave him a small smile and said to the gathering, "It is a nice day and you have all had a little bit of excitement; I think that I should cancel classes for the rest of the morning and you should all go outside and relax."

Fleur, Harry and Hermione gathered their children to one side as the rest of the school streamed past them into the grounds and the entrance hall soon cleared.

"Is there somewhere we can talk to the youngsters, and then we can meet you in your office Headmistress, in maybe half an hour?" Hermione asked.

Professor Flitwick, who was now the Deputy Headmaster, offered his classroom and Harry suggested that he join them in the Headmistresses office.

When they reached the Charms classroom Harry cast a series of locking and silencing charms on the door; Victoire gave a delightful giggle and said, "Professor Flitwick is the Charms Professor, wouldn't he be able to remove those easily?"

Harry smiled at her and said, "Before you want to remove something you need to know it is there, I put a charm of my own invention on the door and if anyone was to listen they would hear us talking about innocuous family matters."

The next ten minutes were not very pleasant; first Harry and Hermione told their children that they were divorcing their other halves' and then they told them that they would have to choose which parent they would officially want to live with. Four of the children answered immediately that they wanted to stay with the parent who was currently in the room, as Harry had predicted, James his eldest, was the only one to hesitate.

Rose said to him, "If your mum was divorcing your dad, you know that she would just take the three of you and disappear to the Burrow, stop winging, at least your dad is giving you a choice."

Eventually after a lot of umming and ahhing and a promise that he could visit whenever he wanted to, James decided that he would stay with his mother.

Then Rose asked, "Are you two going to get married then?"

Hermione answered her daughter, "It is a possibility." Then she turned to Victoire and asked, "Will you look after the two youngest while we talk to the Headmistress, please?"

The Head Girl, who had been talking to her mother about what was going on, assured them that it would be her pleasure and the two groups went their separate ways.

As they were walking towards the Headmistresses office Hermione said quite casually to Harry, "That went pretty much exactly as you said it would."

Elen and Fleur looked surprised at what Hermione had just said but Harry answered, "It did, didn't it; but god help us when we have Rose and Lilly living in the house together."

"They are both very, very bright." Fleur said to Elen by way of an explanation.

As the group reached the gargoyle it moved aside without being asked and they all stepped onto the revolving staircase and went up to Minerva's office.

"Did you get the password from the Head Girl?" Filius asked as soon as they entered the office.

Harry looked blank for a moment and then answered, "I didn't use a password, the gargoyle moved aside as I approached."

He put a copy of the text book on Minerva's desk and made a duplicate of the covenant and gave her that, then continued, "If you read these they will explain what everybody in the British magical community should already know, the book is one of the old school text books for History of Magic. When everybody knew about the requisites of the covenant between Merlin and the magical community this history used to be taught as part of second and fifth years. But now nobody knows about Merlin's sworn undertaking to the whole of magical society and the wizarding world's magically binding pledge to honour it, so now it is essential that as many people as feasible learn about it as quickly as possible."

He had paused and the Headmistress said, "The governors will not allow it and how will we get Binns to teach it?"

Hermione chuckled, "You are the Blue Witch." And then, as if it was blindingly obvious, she added, "Ergo, the governors no longer exist, if you read through the covenant and the text book you will realise that you…actually all five of us…are magically bound to act in the best interests of the students and the school, our regional affiliations are subordinate. All five of us have immense authority, because what we say will be, but we are all operating under a binding magical contract, and we are all bound to act to the best advantage of those whose interests we are indentured to protect.

"Oh and do you want us to think of something to sort Binns out?" The Headmistress nodded eagerly at this last offer.

Harry took over again, "We five will meet up in the atrium of the Ministry of Magic at nine tomorrow morning; it should be an interesting day; for starters we are going to boot out the current membership of the Wizengamot."

The two professors were looking at him as though he was crazy; he continued with a grin, "I am reasonably sure that between you two you can come up with something which will make a copy of the book for you both to read it, really it explains everything, and when you read it you will have a much better idea of what we are going to do. Because I am the White Wizard, it makes me the only person who can make copies of the covenant, the original was charmed by Merlin and it seems to be embedded in the fabric of the earth; only the protectors can read it without permission.

"I think that it would be a good idea to make enough copies of the book for all of the staff because if not before, by tomorrow noon, there are likely to be some questions from the students. Also I am going to arrange a print run so that everybody in Hogwarts receives a copy, I will pay for that copy and by the way the one I have given to Minerva is over two hundred years old. If possible I would like what we are going to do tomorrow kept under wraps, but I should think that by noon tomorrow the cat will be out of the bag and a lot of questions will start flying about, however by then it won't really matter so just answer them if you can.

"Now it might come as a bit of a surprise, but we have quite a bit to get done today, so we will go and collect the two children we brought with us…they are currently feeding the giant squid and then we will make our way back to the bank."

Having all said their goodbyes, the four made their way from the Headmistresses office and went down the revolving spiral stairs to the corridor and started making their way towards the central staircase.

The group had gone about twenty yards when Hermione asked, "Have you ever been in a broom cupboard with a girl Harry?"

He thought for a moment and answered, "Only with you in our third year."

She had a contented smile as she said, "That doesn't count, we were saving Sirius, come on." She dragged him into a broom cupboard they were passing.

The pair emerged about five minutes later; Harry had a big smile although he was squiffy eyed, Hermione however looked very self satisfied. She had to support him at first, as they carried on to the lake where they found their four youngest children with Victoire; they were, as Harry had said, feeding the giant squid.

"Come on you two," Harry called, "we have to go to the bank again. Thank you for looking after them Victoire."

"It was no problem Uncle Harry." She replied with a smile, "Bye mum."

Hugo was looking glum, "We don't have to go to the dress shop again, do we?"

Hermione giggled, "Not today sweetheart." Seeing the confused look on Fleur, Elen, Albus, Rose and the Head Girls faces she explained to them what Harry had said to Hugo the previous day; the girls were all giggling, Albus however, just looked as if it was completely outside his terms of reference.

When they had all said goodbye again Harry created a portkey out of a piece of paper and the six of them disappeared to the bank.

Having seen what the White Wizard had just done a nearby Ravenclaw seventh year said quizzically. "That is not supposed to be possible."

"From what I understand from the rest of the family," Victoire answered, "Uncle Harry has never paid particular attention to the rules; and now that he is the White Wizard I can imagine him bending quite a few more.

"He never does it for personal gain though." She added as an afterthought.

**> **

The group arrived back in Elen's office to find a note asking them to go to see Gnolhamer in his office when they arrived back, so they did.

Harry asked the two children to wait quietly in Elen's office but they both complained that they wanted to know what was going on, so Harry made two copies of the textbook for them and told them that the book's would explain what was going on.

When they arrived in Gnolhamer's office he asked Harry what help he needed for the next day.

What Harry needed all centred around Lucius Malfoy and when he had finished explaining what needed to be done, with a somewhat evil smile Gnolhamer asked, "You do realise that you will strip the majority of the old pureblood families of most of their money and with it their power?"

With a smile which in its way matched the goblin's Hermione answered, "That was the general idea." And then trying to look innocent she added, "But we will only be removing their ill-gotten gains, if they haven't been naughty they will not be punished…will they?"

After some more discussion it was decided that Elen and Fleur would remain in the bank that afternoon to guide the investigation into the financial irregularities surrounding the elder Malfoy.

The Red Witch and the White Wizard still had their cloaks active as they went to collect their children, and they were being quite severely complained to by said children to the effect that they just wanted to keep reading their very interesting books. So, with a swirl of his cloak and to everyone else's amazement, the four of them disappeared from the middle of Diagon Alley.

Two minutes later the Red Witch and the White Wizard arrived back in exactly the same spot in Diagon Alley sans the children; they had been left in the care of the house elves at Harry's house in Chudley Salterton. Needless to say their arrival created another furore.

Straight away the pair made their way to Flourish and Blott's bookshop where Harry asked to see whoever was in charge, the assistant they had asked went and whispered to an older man who was talking to a very snooty looking, obviously pureblood woman.

Turning the man looked at Harry and the White Wizard passing him an original copy of the textbook said, "I need you to print at least a thousand copies of this book, very urgently."

"Who do you think you are interrupting our conversation?" The snooty woman interrupted.

The Red Witch was livid, "Shame on you and your ilk for not knowing who we are, indeed for suppressing the knowledge of what we represent." The woman cowered away from Hermione who had started to radiate power.

"This book is banned; I am not allowed to print it." The very nervous looking older man said.

"I am the 'Lord of Caer Myrddin', 'the White Wizard' and I have been forced to return because of the abuses perpetrated by the likes of her and her cohorts." He indicated the snooty pureblood, "I declare that the book is no longer banned." At the declaration a burst of magic had issued from Harry and then he continued, "Go and check your lists."

When the man returned, the witch was still trembling as he said, "You are quite correct my Lord, the book is no longer banned."

"How much will I owe you for my thousand copies?" Harry asked. "And can they be ready by tomorrow morning?"

"They can indeed my Lord and it will cost you one thousand Galleons, after discount for bulk buying." The older man shook Harry's hand saying, "My name is Ferdinand Flourish and if you ever need anything else please ask for me."

"Thank you." Harry replied, "You can collect the money directly from my account at Gringotts and will you please deliver seven hundred and fifty of them to Hogwarts and the rest to the Ministry of Magic for the attention of Kingsley Shacklebolt, Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I will inform him later what is to be done with them.

"You will probably be selling hundreds, if not thousands of copies in the next few months, be sure to have them available."

Harry took the red Witch's hand and in a swirl of magic the pair disappeared.

An old woman, who had just paid for her purchases cackled, "Oh I am so glad to see it in my lifetime, our world will now be put to rights."

"Demented old woman." The pureblood witch sniped.

A younger witch who was with the old woman was livid, "My great, great, great grandmother is two hundred and twenty two years old and yes that does qualify her as old; however I would have thought that even Camilla Parkinson would have had enough sense to know that Griselda Marchbanks was not demented." She turned to Mr. Flourish and continued, "Grandmother said that the world is going to be put to rights and you will sell thousands of those books; she used them when she was at Hogwarts." The younger witch turned and sauntered out of the door, her head held high.

**> **

The pair had waited to see what would happen in the bookshop, they carried on and landed to a fanfare of trumpets bemused Hermione asked, "Where are we?"

In front of them was a magnificent palace with impressive turrets, one at each corner; the main house had three floors and from outward appearances it could easily have fifty rooms on each floor. The whole palace was surrounded by castellated thirty foot high walls which appeared to be extremely thick; there were towers either side of the main gate and at the corners of the curtain wall; other towers were spaced at no more than fifty yard intervals around the wall.

Currently the pair was half way between the main gate and the front door of the palace and it was at least fifty yards to either.

With a smile he answered, "Myrddin's Castle so at a guess we are somewhere in Wales."

A voice came from behind them, "Of course you are correct, young Harry." The pair spun around drawing their wands, to find themselves facing the three dimensional image of a kindly old man who continued, "You need not your wands with me, although it is good to see that you are both still alert.

"I am an avatar of Myrddin Emrys who you both of course also know as Merlin and you are in what the locals call Caer Gybi the Saesneg that is the English call this area Holyhead and now mayhap you know, roughly, where you are. It would be good for you both to set up home here, there are enough rooms for almost anything you could conceive; the coblyn have kept it all up to date. There is sufficient room for fifty children to play in the garden and the wards extend twice the height of the tallest tower so you can fly; and as well as the swimming pool there is enough room for a Quidditch pitch around the back.

"Let us go to the house," Merlin said, as he started walking slowly towards the front door. "It is a half an hour until lunch time and what I would like you to do now is to take that half an hour to have a quick look at some of the inside of the house and then to have some lunch. After lunch you should sleep for about three hours, this will allow me to teach you several languages, some history, the rules governing what you have undertaken and the geography of some important areas now lost from memory."

Hermione interrupted, "Is there no time for me to kiss Harry?"

The avatar smiled, "You can kiss Harry for as long as you want to after you have slept. So do they still teach anything of the old religion?"

"I have looked and looked," Hermione sounded rather frustrated, "but I haven't found anything on the old religion, and it obviously should be there because of the circles and things."

"Do not fret," Merlin said, "there are four libraries each with its own librarian, also there is Jiffs, she is the head librarian, and you will probably find everything you ever thought of here. Strangely enough the largest is the muggle science and technical reference library; we have brought in a new apprentice to help with that.

"The old religion can be incorporated into the teaching of History." Merlin said, "How well is that taught at Hogwarts?"

They had reached the front door and were now talking on the bottom step, Harry answered, "In all honesty very badly, the teacher is called Binns and he is as mind numbingly boring as watching grass grow, he won't change his syllabus no matter what anybody says; if you threaten to banish him he says that because he is a registered ghost it would be illegal."

Merlin thought for a minute, "Remind him of who you are and tell him that he must move on; if he refuses, tell him that he is an enemy of the state and banish him; have the other four with you and a room full of witnesses if possible."

The trio had climbed the steps so Harry opened the door and they entered a huge hall to be greeted by about forty elves in various uniforms and none of them looked like tea towels. When Hermione looked again she realised that the other major difference between these elves and house elves was that their ears, whilst still pointed, were not as large and they were set against the side of their head's and not sticking out sideways.

A rather pretty, three foot tall, female elf came to the front and said, "Good day to you White Wizard and Red Witch welcome to our home; we hope that you will come to live here. My name is Jemma and I am the senior housekeeper."

Harry introduced first Hermione and then himself to the elves and then Jemma carried on, "We have cared for this house for three generations; that is one thousand three hundred of your years and we live in the glade, which can be entered at the bottom of the garden. There are actually well over a thousand of us and a lot of us take turns coming to help with and around the house; besides myself there are only seven others who will normally always be found here."

The other elves went about their work and Jemma carried on, "Jiffs and the other five librarians are always here; as is Suria the cook and she has as many as fifty helpers who will come if needed, Mimi is a ladies maid and there are any numbers of others who will help her if they are needed.

"Memo is in charge of maintaining the house and its systems like the lighting, telephones, television and things like that; obviously he has a large team who work with him; he will make your mobile telephones work in all magical areas for you. The others you can see are the guards, although most of their time is taken up checking and maintaining the wards; the wards extend around Elfhiem the elven glade, and that when you are in it appears to be over a thousand miles square.

"It is not a coincidence that the castle is built on top of a major magical node; the magic powers all of the wards and the generator for the electricity we use. Now it is time for lunch so allow me to show you to where you might eat."

Hermione was not happy and she whined, "But I wanted to see the libraries."

As they were walking Jemma answered her with a tinkling giggle. "Taken together the libraries are bigger than Hogwarts and I would seriously recommend that you never enter them to search for something. There are reading rooms, if you go to one and ask to read something in particular or about something in general, the books will be brought to you, it is much safer."

Merlin had been walking along with them but as they reached their destination he said, "I shall leave you now for a short while, I shall see you sometime shortly after your lunch." Having finished speaking he faded out of sight.

Jemma sat them opposite each other at a circular table which would comfortably seat six and with a smirk said, "Your lunch will arrive shortly and please remember that there are many of us and excess food will never be wasted." Then the elf turned and walked out of the room.

As Jemma disappeared through the door the food arrived on the table and they were in any doubt as to what Jemma had been talking about; there was enough to have fed Ron four times.

Three quarters of an hour later, when they had eaten and giggled their way through a reasonable quantity of food, Jemma reappeared to escort them to their next rendezvous, it was a prodigious walk.

Twenty two stairs had to be climbed to reach the first floor and they had had to walk about a hundred yards from the dining room to reach the staircase; Hermione said, "If we come to live here we will have nothing but complaints from the children, about how far everything is, me as well come to that."

At the top of the stairs there were three sets of double doors, and they each had a brass plaque; the one to the left was inscribed 'East Visitors Wing'; the one to the right was emblazoned 'Family Wing'; 'Protectors Sanctuary' was on the doors straight ahead of them and they went through the latter doors.

Jemma had already told them that she was not allowed into the 'Protectors Sanctuary,' however, unsurprisingly, standing inside the doors was Merlin's avatar.

The room itself was about forty foot square and in the centre of it was a four inch thick, twelve foot diameter, oak table; surrounded by six, very comfortable looking arm chairs. It was magic but, like Hogwarts Great Hall, the ceiling appeared to be open to the sky. There were two doors in each of the walls to their left and right another one was in the centre of the far wall; from left to right the doors were coloured green, yellow, white, red and blue; the designated occupant of each room was obvious. The cushions on the chairs matched the doors in both colour and order.

Around the room were bookcases, sofas, lounge chairs and small tables, they all looked extremely comfortable; the higher walls were adorned with swords and shields, together with various other weapons and armour.

Merlin greeted them, "Welcome to our sanctuary and yes this is the round table of legend; actually the castle you are in is what legend would call Camelot; although it has never been called that and neither has it ever looked like any of the tales told of it.

"However that is not why we are here. I would like you each to go to your room and lay on the bed; and yes Hermione you may kiss him before you separate."

The pair had asked no questions and they made their way around the table and outside the red door Harry kissed Hermione and said, "See you soon." Then they both entered their rooms.

His room was very large but barren, about twenty feet by forty and all it contained was a large canopied bed; so he took his shoes off and lay on the bed.

He was instantly asleep.

When he awoke his head was spinning, it seemed to be stuffed full of all kinds of things, so he climbed off the bed and went to look for his new love.

Her room was also large and barren, about twenty feet by thirty and like his all it contained was a canopied bed the same size as his; mirroring his actions she took off her shoes and lay on the bed.

Again she was instantly asleep.

When she awoke her head seemed to be full of lots and lots of lovely new information which she instantly started to file away to be examined in detail later, having woken fully she decided that later would be after she had snogged Harry senseless. With this latter priority in mind she climbed off her bed and went to look for her green eyed love.

It was not a coincidence that they both exited their rooms at the same time, anyway neither of them believed in coincidences like that.

Merlin met them and said, "Now you must digest what you have learned; so if you leave the Sanctuary Jemma will meet you and take you around the Family Wing and Hermione will have as long as she wants to canoodle. You can leave the castle whenever you want to; however before you leave will you please tell Jemma if you intend to live here.

"I will not normally be around the castle when others are here but if ever you do need to talk to me you can come to this room to do so.

"Please do not forget that you need to bring the other three protectors here as soon as possible so that they might sleep the same way as you did.

Before they could ask any questions the avatar had faded from sight.

Hermione was practically bouncing as she took his hand and pulling him slightly she said, "Let's go and find Jemma."

Walking hand in hand they went around the table and went out through the double doors; Jemma was waiting for them and she took them through the double doors to the family wing.

It was difficult to tell from the entrance hallway, but at first glance, it looked like a very upmarket, modern muggle house.

Jemma asked, "Would you like me to show you around or really it is quite straight forward, would you like to look around by yourselves?"

"If it really is straight forward," Hermione said with a smile, "then I think that we should look around by ourselves."

Jemma looked quite pleased, "In that case can you be sure to tell me if you will be going to live here." With that she turned and left the pair alone.

The hallway they were in was quite wide and very long, there were stairs going up at the far end and there were four well spaced doors either side of the hall; for some reason Hermione was heading for the second door on the right hand side.

"Darling, please wait a minute."

Apart from anything else the word 'darling' had stopped her in her tracks, she had known him for over twenty five years and it was the first time that he had ever used a term of endearment to her.

She turned and walked back to him then promptly tried to snog the life out of him.

Luckily for everyone she failed in her kissing target, although his knees were decidedly shaky and he was most definitely squiffy eyed; "What did you want my love?" she asked demurely.

It took him a couple of minutes to work out just what she was talking about but eventually he suggested, "Let's take the rooms in some kind of order."

So they went into the first room on the right; it was a fairly large formal dining room which took them all of fifteen seconds to peruse before they went straight across the hall and found a similarly sized, uncomfortable looking, formal lounge. The formal lounge had taken up no more of their time than the formal dining room had occupied.

All of the other rooms looked at appeared to be far more comfortable; and the next room they looked in looked like the Gryffindor common room with the addition of a large bar and across from that a room that looked suitable for family parties; of probably up to a hundred people.

The next pair was a television room and a study which were also both quite large; this encouraged Hermione to say, "All of the rooms are so big, we don't need all of this space."

For nearly twenty years Harry had been living in far more opulent surroundings than Hermione and he had had time to consider this before, "When we marry there will be six of us and in ten years four or five more could be added; although Albus and Rose will be twenty one and they both could be married. Put another ten years on that and I am not even going to hazard a guess at numbers, we could both easily live another hundred and twenty years and at Christmas the castle could be full.

"When I first moved to Chudley Salterton I thought that the place was enormous, most of the loos are bigger than my bedroom was in Privet Drive. It did not take me very long to get used to the extra space and it won't take very long for you to become used to having all of the space here either.

"Anyway it is tradition for the White Wizard to live in Merlin's Castle and if we don't it will be because you are Muggleborn and I am muggle raised; ask the Daily Prophet, they are the definitive experts on everything to do with me."

She giggled, "So what you are saying is that basically we don't have a lot of choice and I suppose that really truly you are right; we are going to explode the pureblood philosophy, which will be bad enough without us bucking this tradition as well."

By this time they had seen the largish dining room and the enormous 'L' shaped family room, which had the only thing which even remotely resembled a kitchen and even that, was more like a bar with a microwave and coffee maker.

Hermione was getting frustrated, she wanted to find what would be their bedroom, so she started up the stairs and Harry said, "If you were wearing trousers I would have a wonderful view of your bum."

Never having been one to duck a challenge she reached down and lifted her robes up to her waist thus giving Harry a stupefying view of her panty clad posterior. Five minutes later when he eventually reached the top of the stairs, she was leant against the wall looking smug, "Serves you right," she said flippantly and then in a far more serious tone added, "but did you like it?"

His answer was to give her the kind of kiss she had given him after he had called her darling; when her brain was functioning again she realised that they both had a very similar effect on each other.

Looking at what was here they could see two doors each side of the corridor and the same configuration of four doors repeated about two thirds of the way to the far end where there was a single door in the far wall. There was a balustrade around the stairwell and near to that end wall there was a spiral staircase going up; being the intrepid adventurous souls they were they decided to go up.

It was sheer cowardice that caused Harry to go first, he was afraid that if Hermione went first and did what she had done before she might make his brain short out permanently.

On the first landing there was a single door, it had a sign, **'Boys Only', all others keep out unless invited.'** Harry looked in and then invited Hermione in. The room was circular and about thirty feet across, however the central ten feet were missing since that was where the staircase was. It was very much a boy's play room, with computers and gaming machines, big chairs and bean bags amongst other things scattered around it.

When they reached the next landing there was an identical door however the word Boys on the sign had been replaced by Girls, smiling Hermione went in first and invited Harry in. Dimensionally this room was the same as the one below but this was as much a girl's room as the other had been for boys; although there were computers and games machines here as well.

Blocking the very top of the spiral stairs was a trapdoor and Hermione who was once again leading started giggling; when Harry asked what was so amusing she told him that the sign on the trapdoor read, **'Astronomy Tower' – this is not a euphemism for a place to snog'**.

Looking around they found an observatory that was more than adequate for all magical requirements.

Having made their way back down to the second floor corridor they started checking out the eight bedrooms; it would have been more accurate to call them bedroom suites. Each comprised a lounge study area; a wardrobe dressing room; a very nice bathroom with both a bath and a shower, the loo and bidet were in a small separate room and a room with a bed and two bedside cabinets. Apart from their colour all eight rooms were identical and they both knew that it would be extremely easy to change the colour using magic.

At long last they had reached what was to be their bedroom, Hermione looked at her watch and realised that she only had five minutes before they would have to find Jemma prior to going home.

She was not a happy girl, however putting her disappointment to one side she totally ignored the room and started kissing Harry with a vengeance.

Having made their way back down to the landing outside the Sanctuary they met Jemma and told her that they would be coming to live here very soon, possibly the next day; and then Hermione asked, "Will it be alright for me to bring my muggle parents here?"

Smiling Jemma answered, "Protectors are always very sensible people and we leave it up to your judgment as to who you bring here; effectively it is your home and you can bring anybody you want to it."

Harry said, "Tomorrow we are going to try to sort out the Wizengamot and the Ministry of Magic; would somebody be able to look after them if we brought two of our children here for the day?"

Jemma was almost bouncing with joy, "It will be our pleasure, the only problem I will have is stopping about five hundred elves trying to play with them at the same time."

Hermione was slightly upset having not previously given any thought to what they were going to do with the children the next day.

The pair had timed it well and it was ten minutes before their normal dinner time when the pair arrived back in Chudley Salterton, only to find that they hadn't been missed in the slightest. Lilly and Hugo were sat in the same chairs in the library, apparently not having moved, and they had nearly finished reading their books; both of the adults expected a plethora of questions when the pair emerged from their reading.

Neither Hermione nor Harry thought that it was a coincidence that dinner just happened to be ready at the same time as the children finished their books, dinner was seven minutes late.

Peace reigned for the first ten minutes of dinner and then Lilly said definitively, "But the world is not like that."

That was the chink in the floodgate and the questions were constant for the next hour and a half; then Harry said, "Enough, tomorrow we will take you to Caer Myrddin and I will ask Merlin's avatar if he will talk to you about it. An avatar is…"

Hugo sighed with exasperation, "We know what an avatar is, it is like the people on the holodeck in Star Trek."

Harry smiled, "Except that this one is over a thousand years old and he seems to be able to walk around everywhere."

Winky had come in to clear the table when Hermione said, "The elves will look after you."

Lilly was surprised, "You're going to let some strange house elves look after us?"

Smiling Hermione replied, "I said elves and I meant elves; not house elves."

Two were surprised but Winky was amazed, she said, "Misses and Master has seen the real elves?" it was said in an awed whisper.

"Yes Winky," Harry said kindly, "we met some real elves today, would you like to meet them?"

The house elf had become very shy and said, "Ever since she was a very little elf, Winky has wanted to meet real elves."

"Then we will take you with us tomorrow and you will meet some real elves." Hermione said decisively.

Generally it was a very excited household that went to bed, not very late, that evening; Harry however was having a return of the fears of his childhood; he was hoping that taking Winky to Caer Myrddin wasn't a terrible mistake.

The thought of being punished by Merlin was somewhat disquieting.

**Authors Note:** Third part next week. **PLEASE REVIEW**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer; **J. K. Rowling owns the Harry Potter Universe all other claimants to anything to do with the H.P. story are simply hangers on to her glory. I thank her for allowing us mere mortals to play in her world and I promise that while I have Harry in my care nothing too bad will happen to him.

**Authors Note. **This is the final part and I hope that you enjoy it.

**H. P. Where there's the will.**

**Day Three. **

It was seven thirty in the morning and everybody in the Potter household was up, the fact that the elder two had wanted a few more minutes in bed had had absolutely no effect whatsoever on the younger two. Some things are very difficult to quote odds for and the odds against Hugo wanting to go out before he had had breakfast were extremely long, however he and his quasi sister were both being, as his extremely polite mother pointed out, 'a pair of bloody pains.' This didn't have any effect on the excited duo either, so in desperation the adults took the others to Caer Myrddin Hermione taking Hugo and Harry taking Lilly and Winky.

**> **

Amazement would sum up the expressions on the three new visitors faces, Lilly at the beautiful palace with its magnificent towers and turrets, Hugo at the impressive towers, battlements and fortifications of the outer castle wall and Winky at the sight of the four elves who were coming towards them.

Jemma said with what could only be described as a smirk, "Good morning 'Gwyn Brudiwr' you are very early, have you even had breakfast?"

"Good morning Jemma." Harry answered somewhat despondently, "These two horrors wouldn't wait and I am afraid that we haven't eaten."

"Well if you four would like to come to your dining room in the family wing we will bring you breakfast." Jemma then smiled at Winky, "Why have you brought us one of our cousins?"

Hermione took over, "Her name is Winky and she has been our friend for a long time, she was hand fasted to another house elf friend of ours who was called Dobby. Dobby was killed by Bellatrix Lestrange as he was saving our lives in the war against Voldemort. Winky told us that she has always wanted to meet real elves, we don't think that we can ever repay what Dobby did for us but we will continue to try."

One of the female elves, who had come with Jemma, held her hand out to Winky and said, "Come cousin Winky, my name is Fayer, let me show you our world." The house elf took the hand of the elf and smiling happily, walked away with her.

The other two elves who had come with Jemma were talking merrily with Lilly and Hugo as the seven were heading towards breakfast. On their way to the castle Jemma asked them if it would be in order for the elves to start moving their personal belongings into the castle and the pair readily agreed that if it was in order they would be living here from now on.

Breakfast was a very happy meal and the three elves had joined them, the elves had talked a lot and eaten little; whereas Lilly and Hugo had done the opposite, eaten a lot and talked little.

Eventually it was nearly nine o'clock and after a lot of last minute instructions, mainly reminders to behave, they activated their cloaks and departed to the atrium of the Ministry of Magic.

**> **

The other three also wearing their cloaks, met them in the atrium of the Ministry of Magic; Harry told the other three protectors that they would have to visit Caer Myrddin as soon as possible, to talk to Merlin and to have their educational sleep.

Looking slightly worried Minerva asked, "Harry, what will you do if they try to oppose you and start trouble?" The Headmistress didn't want to say 'start another war'.

"I have given the matter a little thought." The white Wizard replied, "What is the most important thing you need to mount an effective opposition?" He had asked the question rhetorically, so he answered it himself. "It's Money; and we are going to start off with Malfoy, but by the time we have finished with him none of the others who are likely to want to start causing trouble will have any left either. The so called pureblood hierarchy has arranged a system of instant financial justice to keep the so called 'others' in their place. We are going to talk about the Malfoys wheeling and dealing; and by the time we have finished, without realising it, most of the lapdogs will be out of a job and broke.

"We will start off by getting them off balance and hopefully by the time they have regained it they will be toothless."

The five had been walking slowly and when they reached the entrance to the Wizengamot assembly room they were joined by Gnolhamer, two humans and five other goblins from Gringotts. One of the humans was Bill Weasley, Fleur's husband, who having been sworn to secrecy, had been told of his brother and sister's actions and what was going to happen to them. Bill was far more distressed by his siblings' actions than by the thought of what was going to happen to them; he was aware that Harry and Hermione weren't going to put them straight into Azkaban as they were perfectly entitled to do.

After they had all greeted each other the twelve strong group strode straight into the Wizengamot assembly room to face the expected outburst from the members already present.

The five protectors were to the front.

Harry stepped forward and began loudly, which caused the room to quieten somewhat. "To a greater or lesser extent you all know me, I am Harry Potter. I am also 'the Uchel Amddiffynnydd' the Chief Protector of the magical world; Lord of Caer Myrddin which is Merlin's Castle as in the original Merlin and I am also known as 'Y Gwyn Brudiwr' which, for those who don't speak Welsh, translates as 'the White Wizard'."

A tremendous eruption of blinding white light mixed with magic surged from the five, and when it died down he continued into what was now totally awed silence.

"I am here to judge those who deserve Judgment; punish those who deserve punishment and save your sorry arses and yes, I have been lumbered again. I will make no bones about it; your complete failure to rectify the failings in the wizarding world government after we destroyed Voldemort, in fact you have been making things worse.

"One of you just had the gall to ask how!

"Here's how, it is the self centred pureblood bigotry that has all but forced us into this position by trying to inflate their own status, without cause and insinuate their delusional ideas into our society; they are destroying our society.

"It will be just as well for you to know who my associates are; behind us five are Gringotts goblins and two humans; from their Investigation, Legal and Accounting Departments; they are here to see that justice is seen to be done and paid for.

"My other four companions will introduce themselves."

"I am Minerva McGonagall; Scottish pure-blooded witch; Headmistress and Protector of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; Protector of Scotland and the Blue Witch." There was a small magical flare.

"I am Elen O'Neil; Irish half blooded witch; Protector of the Law; Protector of Ireland and the Green Witch." There was another small magical flare.

"I am Fleur Delacour Weasley; French born half Vela; Protector of magical beings; Protector of England; the Yellow Witch." Yet another, this time slightly larger, magical flare.

"I am Hermione Granger; English Muggle born witch; Protector of muggles, the muggle born and the half blood wizards and witches; Protector of Wales; the Red Witch." There was a substantial magical flare.

When Hermione had named herself Granger Ron had attempted to react, however he found himself unable to speak above a very quiet whisper additionally he could not move from his seat.

"I have already informed you that I am the White Wizard and I am here to pass judgment on your sins both deliberate and those of omission. However the tradition which the self-seeking pureblood incompetents have tried for over two hundred years to quash dictates that we five must undertake any personal business we have first.

"Only two of us have personal business at this time; so I first call upon the Red Witch.

Hermione took an envelope from the inside of her robe and emptied its contents of onto a table at the front of the hall. There were about fifty moving photographs of Ron in various states of undress with a similarly clad Lavender Brown, and there was no doubt what they were doing; Arthur and Molly looked horrified.

The restriction of Ron's movement had been lifted when Hermione had been given the floor and he jumped up and said, "You cannot divorce me you fool, because muggleborn's can't divorce purebloods if they are married to them, no matter who I screw."

Lavender Brown was also in the room and the expression on her face made it perfectly clear that she did not like her dirty washing being laundered in public.

There were quite a few other young people in the room who cringed, they remembered the two of them from Hogwarts and they were all totally certain that Ron's disengaged brain had landed him in three way trouble. The least of his worries was Lavender, she was basically a softie and would probably get over it in a couple of days; the next was Hermione, however, provided he left her alone, when she had finished with him, she would probably do the same for him; but on the top of the list was his mother, who was obviously really steaming.

"I will not resort to name calling, we shall see who the lazy fool is shortly."

The Red Witch gave a small smile, "You really are your own worst enemy because you are extremely lazy, you want everything but you are unwilling to do any work, either physical or mental, to get it. You do not seem to understand that it is not your divine right to be handed the world on a platter, all in all you had a very good childhood but every time you see anyone with anything you do not have you get jealous.

"You were jealous of Harry because he had money and you didn't; you never seemed to offset that with the fact that Voldemort had killed his parents when he was a baby, you just wanted to have money; but then your pride stopped you taking what he freely offered.

"You were jealous of Harry because he was famous, you were quite content with the factthat it was Harry Voldemort was trying to kill; you didn't want that bit you just wanted to be famous.

"All through our first six years in school you never seemed to like me, why suddenly did you give me a love potion? Did somebody point out to you that Harry and I were starting to like each other as more than just friends so jealousy struck again and you decided that you were going to have me so that Harry couldn't?" With fire in her eyes she pointed her right hand at Ron and said, "Answer me truthfully!"

White light surrounded Ron and he answered, "You're quite right that I don't really like you but towards the end of sixth year Lavender pointed out that it looked like you and Harry were beginning to like each other. So I dumped Lavender and persuaded Ginny to help me keep the pair of you apart. So what I was jealous, why should he have something else that I didn't have?

"Even when I married you I couldn't treat you as I wanted to, Mr perfect Harry would have noticed and I would have been in trouble."

Ron glared at her when Hermione cancelled the spell then she said scathingly, "You really are a nasty piece of work; however let's get on.

"All of the years we studied together at Hogwarts and despite your total disbelief in the matter I tried to help you, you never did learn even the first tenet of researching a subject. Rule one; read all of the available information; if you just skim the first paragraph you will not understand the material or have the whole picture. If you had bothered to read as far as the second chapter you would have discovered that you needed to register our muggle wedding to make it legal in the wizarding world; so whose the fool now Ronald Bilius Weasley?

"We were divorced by a muggle court on the first of September at four thirty in the afternoon; the reason quoted was the irretrievable breakdown of our marriage. We could hardly tell them the real reason, could we?

"Since that time you have been missing; as your note said you were with your sister at a wake for one of your mother's relations. I do hope that you were both telling the truth because one thing I do know is that your mother detests liars."

It was obvious from the expression on Molly and her two youngest children's faces that they had not been honest; however the Red Witch carried on, "Yesterday, whilst we were at Hogwarts talking to the Headmistress, I spoke with our children about the divorce and they decided that they do not like your behaviour and they wish to live with me; so that is what will happen. You never maintained our children throughout our marriage they were fed and clothed by your mother and Harry; so I won't bother wasting my breath asking you to maintain them now.

"I would not like to be in your shoes when you embark on your next great adventure.

"I will finish by saying this now; both Harry and I have the irrefutable medical evidence that you and your sister have been systematically using Aphrodite Seven, love potion on him and I." There was a loud murmuring around the room, this was a very serious criminal offence. "If we decide to press charges against either or both of you, you will go to Azkaban for a very long time; we withhold the charges against your reasonable future behaviour.

"Thank you all for listening to me."

She stepped back into line; it had previously been evident that Ron's relationship with his mother had taken a nosedive and it looked like it was still diving.

Harry stepped forward waved his hand and all of the photographs, scattered over the table, returned to their envelope; he tossed another envelope on top of the first and wandlessly floated the pair of them to Arthur and said, "Mister Weasley, Arthur, this business is not your fault, it is their misguided foolishness that has produced this mess."

"Facing the assembly he said, "Ginevra Molly Weasley has been unfaithful to me, numerous times, with Dean Thomas; I hereby divorce her."

Arthur was holding Molly tightly; half of those present thought that it was for him to give her comfort; the other half thought that it was to prevent her from doing her two youngest children grievous bodily harm; the second half were probably correct.

"Yesterday I also spoke with our children; James wishes to remain with you; provided you will have him; the other two wish to come with me; is this satisfactory?"

Molly looked slightly relieved and stood, "It is more than we deserve; please, we will be able to see the others occasionally, won't we?"

"Of course you will and I am sure that I speak for Hermione as well." Hermione nodded and Mrs. Weasley gave them a relieved smile in return and then sat back down very close to Arthur.

Ron was not making a very good job of looking belligerent, whilst Ginny simply had her head bowed in shame.

Harry continued, "I now wish to claim Hermione Jane Granger as my wife…if she will have me."

Again there was murmuring around the room; in the main it sounded female and to the effect of 'if she won't have him I will'; however Hermione stepped forward and smiling said, "I willingly accede to your request." Now they were both smiling as he kissed her.

Earlier he had said keep them off balance so without preamble he said, "That is the end of the personal items so now we move to the more serious business.

"By the Power invested in me as the 'Uchel Amddiffynnydd' I hereby dissolve the Wizengamot."

As expected this short statement did exactly what Harry had wanted it to; it produced uproar, they allowed it to carry on for a couple of minutes and then Minerva stepped forward and said in her best Headmistress voice, "Silence!" there was almost instant quiet, so she continued in a normal voice, "As was suggested earlier, by the best student Hogwarts has been privileged to have for very many years, the first thing is to collect the facts; listen and you all might learn something."

Uneasy quiet remained and Harry continued, "Unfortunately this isn't the first time the 'High Protector' has had to carry out this action, but fortunately for us there is now a contingency in place to carry us over. One of the major problems originally encountered is that when the High Protector dissolves the Wizengamot the Ministry of Magic was totally disbanded at the same time."

Once again there was uproar but in a voice like thunder he carried on, "Listen carefully!" again the room quietened somewhat, "Although they didn't know it, the Board of Governors for Hogwarts was automatically disbanded yesterday, when we five united. Today from the Ministry we basically lose the top four levels. These comprise of course Minister who, due to a recent change in the rules, is now appointed by the Wizengamot; the Senior Undersecretaries who are un-elected career Civil Servants; the Divisional Heads who are also elected internally and the Undersecretaries who are flunkies appointed by the Senior Undersecretaries. So in effect the majority of people running the Ministry are un-elected, worse still they are in the main self perpetuating career civil servants; horror of horrors.

"Is it any wonder that the magical world is in such a mess?

"Departmental Managers do not immediately or necessarily lose their jobs; generally they normally do all of the work and without the idiots from above sticking their uninformed noses in, they can easily keep the Ministry ticking over in the interim."

This time there was only loud murmuring, "Now we come to the judgments; which totally unsurprisingly to most thinking people seem to have one common element, the Malfoy family."

"So I call Lucius Malfoy."

There was a rumble of relief through the room that seemed to be one of 'thank god it wasn't me'.

However the senior Malfoy had turned pale; he had his wand that looked like a walking stick in his hand.

A large wooden table surrounded by enough chairs for them all to sit was to one side of the front of the room; this table was covered with large legal looking books, others that looked like ledgers and scrolls of parchment. Hermione had charmed a large white screen on to the wall in front of the tiered rows of seats and Elen had placed a hard wooden chair with arms to the far side of the presentation area. The chair was at an angle half facing the tiered rows but when sitting you would only have to turn your head to see the white screen.

As he approached the chair Lucius Malfoy's wand was jerked out of his hand and parked itself gently in the middle of the table which had previously held the damming photographs of the youngest two Weasley siblings.

Harry said, "This is not one of my areas of expertise, so I am handing the proceedings over to the Green Witch; she is also a solicitor with Gringotts, she will be aided by other members of the bank."

"Lucius Malfoy," Elen began, "if we were to list all of your crimes against the magical community we would still be reading them out at midnight and so far you have managed to lie, cheat or buy your way out of all of them. When your doom is pronounced; I have been assured that you will neither be executed nor imprisoned; we do not believe in the former and you have proved yourself far too slippery an individual to trust to a prison; never fear we will think of something appropriate.

"In order to reduce the time it will take, we are going to display a list of relevant dates; the number of Galleons you paid, to whom you paid it and finally a note of what we believe the money was for. If you believe that any of the displayed entries is incorrect, then you simply have to say that you challenge it and we will be prepared to discuss it."

Paradoxically Cornelius Fudge had the dubious honour of being the first name listed; the thousand Galleons was for ignoring an Imperious Curse cast by Lucius who was sixteen on Severus Snape when Snape was only an eleven years old first year. The list proceeded at the rate of one entry every five seconds and as the entry scrolled up and cleared the screen the recipients names formed a list with the amount received against it; the money against some of the names was adding up as other bribes were added. As the list, on the right hand side of the screen grew, there were numerous people in the room who were beginning to realise that they were in, as the saying goes, deep Doo-Doo.

At the end of an hour the goblins paused the display and Elen said, "We have seen about one hundred and twenty entries, dating back nearly fifty years and we haven't had one challenge; if we continue at this rate we will be here well into the night, we will present the full list of people we believe have received bribes."

The list of two hundred and eighty seven names included all but two of the Ministry of Magic personnel who had been removed from office earlier that morning. Money wise the total was in excess of eighteen million Galleons and in accordance with wizarding law the fine Lucius was liable to was five times that; some ninety three million Galleons: effectively the Malfoys were now bankrupt. Lucius' eyes went wide as a complete list of all of his hidden property and bank accounts were displayed on the wall; it did however still leave him some eight million Galleons short for paying the fine. The highly efficient goblins will have been collecting his debt to the Ministry; as it was being displayed on the giant, muggle style, screen (of course it would be less their ten percent commission).

Narcissa Malfoy had issued a challenge at one point, it had been against one of the accounts which now contained a little over two hundred and twenty eight thousand Galleons; she claimed that it was her money. She had told everyone that it was the bride price Lucius' father had paid for her to marry his son, plus interest of course; this account was put aside for assessment later.

Some of the names on the list were still in black; however most of the names were in red with numbers against them; Arthur Weasley stood and asked, "Why are some of the names in black whereas most of the names are in red?"

Gnolhamer was fairly certain that Arthur already knew the answer to what he was asking and was just making absolutely certain that everybody else realised the answer as well, so he replied, "The standard punishment for a Ministry employee who takes a bribe is a fine of ten times the amount of the bribe plus dismissal with prejudice and possible further time in prison. Those whose names are still in red do not, to our knowledge, have the funds to cover their fine so additional means will have to be found to punish them; the number against the name is the shortfall."

It seemed that they had reached a natural break; so Harry interrupted the proceedings, "I think that at this time it will be necessary to pause the proceedings for a moment.

"Please will Kingsley Shacklebolt and Arthur Weasley both come down here for a few minutes?" Harry and Hermione immediately started a debate with the two who had been called down; they had had no particular intention of keeping their conversation secret.

After about three minutes Harry turned to the room and said, "I do not need anyone to tell me that both of these gentlemen are my friends and you shouldn't need me to tell you that they are the only two people from the top echelons of the Ministry not to appear on Lucius Malfoy's sycophant list. If any of you think that this is a lucky coincidence then you are not thinking; I pick people I trust for my friends not those who will sell me out for a few pieces of Malfoy gold.

"Anyway back to business; for the time being, by his choice, Kingsley Shacklebolt will remain as Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Arthur Weasley has grudgingly accepted the position of interim Minister of Magic. This should aid the re-establishment of the Ministry and keep the Aurors along with the prison service, working efficiently.

"Director, will you arrange somewhere safe for Mr Malfoy until he is sentenced; and next I call Draco Malfoy."

The younger Malfoy stood as his shaken father was still being led from the room; no one who was honest and knew him would consider Draco to be particularly bright; today he proved it yet again.

Half way to the front of the room he drew his wand and fired a blasting curse; presumably it was intended for Harry, however it missed and hit Elen who was next to him; it hit her in the back, she hadn't even been looking so she had had no opportunity to try to move out of the way. The curse reflected from her cloak, (with what they later confirmed to be,) five times its original power and hit the Ferret in the middle of his chest.

Draco exploded.

Harry was placing a containment bubble around Draco almost before the curse hit him; where he had been was now simply a mass of blood and gore, slopping around in the bottom of the bubble.

Lucius slumped against the wall having just seen his only son effectively commit suicide; Narcissa remained sitting stonily in her seat and eventually said, "Well, I suppose he has had that coming for a very long time." Her tone held absolutely no regret, and along with many others, Hermione thought that quite a long story lay behind Narcissa's words.

Harry turned to Kingsley and said, "Put Malfoy back in the chair; we will finish dealing with him now."

When the aurors had returned Malfoy, none too gently, to the witness chair, Harry turned to him and in a voice as cold as ice said, "Lucius Malfoy I hereby pronounce your doom.

"By your own actions over the last fifty years you have proved yourself to be slippery, cunning and devious; ergo in deciding your fate I have taken these characteristics into consideration." At this point Hermione whispered something into his ear, with a small smile he continued. "We have ascertained that to refill the Malfoy family coffers you used magic to systematically rob muggles, if we place you in a situation where you could possibly get free we believe that you would immediately do the same thing again. Therefore my punishment and cure for your wayward ways will be to make you a muggle; however the Red Witch wishes to do the world, what I consider to be, a favour and I will allow her to tell you about it herself."

Hermione moved forward, "Hello Lucius, besides my being the Red Witch you know who I am, don't you? By my count you have tried to kill me at least four times for Voldemort, your previous master and your failure proves that you are not even a particularly good wizard.

"You also tried to kill my very good friend Ginny Weasley; you seem surprised that she should still be my good friend? Well we people on the light side like to forgive people who err as long as they don't keep doing it and in her own way she recently did me a favour; I now have the man I have always loved.

"We Red Witch's know that when it comes to magic it is the thought that counts not the words so I will cast these spells in English so that you are aware of what is happening." She pointed her right hand at him and said _**'sterilize'**_ and a beam of pale blue light engulfed him for a second; she pointed her hand again and said _**'permanent erectile dysfunction'**_ a paler beam of blue light engulfed him and Hermione walked away.

Ginny had found her voice and it sounded across the room, "Ok, smarty pants; so I think that we all know what the first one did to him, but a lot of us others are not quite as clever as you, so what did the second one do to him?"

With an innocent, almost angelic smile the Red Witch answered, "Well it doesn't really matter if he likes girls, boys, sheep or chickens his nether portions will never ever rise to the occasion, so to speak."

It took a few seconds for most people to realise what she had meant, but as they did the men were wincing however female giggling was spreading rapidly around the room; Narcissa's voice eventually rose above it all, "Absolutely brilliant."

When the giggling died down Harry stood in front of Lucius again, "For the benefit of everybody I will take my wife's example and do this verbally and in English." He pointed his right hand at Malfoy and said, _**"Make this man a muggle"**_. Dark blue light issued from his hand engulfing the prisoner; when the glow had faded a sixty five year old muggle man was sitting slumped in the chair; the removal of his magic had caused Lucius to appear to age about thirty or forty years.

There was an extremely worried mumbling going around the room but Harry continued, "The wages of sin are not very pleasant are they Lucius Malfoy." There was now absolute silence in the room as Harry turned to the aurors and told them, "Take him away, if he wishes he can now be put in prison; life would not be easy for him in the muggle world."

Again Harry stood in front of the room and he asked, "Would any one of you like to volunteer to be next?"

Neither Hermione nor Harry were really surprised when Narcissa volunteered, she made her way to the front and sat erect in the chair and asked, "If it pleases the White Wizard I would like the wands of both the earlier accused checked for previous spells they have cast."

"What are we looking for Madam?" Kingsley asked her politely.

"For about the last thirty five years I have been repeatedly subjected to the _imperius curse_, only the last twenty years in the case of my son." The room was stunned at Narcissa's admission.

The spell used by the Auror's displayed the last twenty spells cast by a wand; eighteen of Lucius' and eleven of Draco's were the suspected unforgivable curse; the other two from Lucius' wand were the _Cruciatus_.

Hermione had received permission from her and she had been casting diagnostic spells on Narcissa, as she told the White Wizard the result, she made certain that everyone else heard as well, "Narcissa is not pregnant, she has widespread bruising, she has recently been subjected to the _Cruciatus_ curse which could well be the cause of the bruising and she has been subjected to the _imperius_ numerous times over a period of many years, including very recently."

Harry looked sympathetically at Narcissa, "I do not believe we have to ask you anything other than, what we might do to help you? The goblins will of course release your money without prejudice."

Her daughter in law had come to help Narcissa and when the older woman stopped sobbing with relief she asked, "Would it be possible for me to revert to my maiden name?" Both Harry and Narcissa were well aware of the ramifications of this request.

Harry looked quizzically at the other four protectors and when they nodded he said, "Narcissa Black, I hereby free you from any connection to Lucius Malfoy and welcome you back to the House of Black, of which I am now the patron, we will discuss our relationship later."

Narcissa stood and curtsied to the White Wizard and then turned to the room and said, "The White Wizard has no reason to help me at all. In my eyes the fact that he has bears testament to his honesty and his willingness to forgive those he believes to have wronged him in the past.

"I look forward to better times." As she returned to her seat most of the room thought that whatever the future held it would probably be much better for Ms Narcissa Black.

The Green Witch stood and stepped forward then said with a smile, "It has come to my attention that the Red Witch and the White Wizard were married a few hours ago and they have only had the opportunity to kiss once since then and I am fairly certain that they would like to increase the count."

This statement produced more than a few snickers around the room; after all there were quite a few people in the room who were not in any kind of trouble.

"Similarly the Blue Witch has the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to run.

"So I propose that the three leave us, and return at a time when we are in the position of requiring judgements for those felons who prove unable to pay their fines; at this moment I estimate that this will not be for at least a week."

With his own smile Kingsley Shacklebolt stood and queried, "White Wizard, I had about two hundred and fifty, what look like school text books delivered to my office this morning; the delivery elf told me that it had been your idea?"

Harry looked sheepish, "About that; Professor McGonagall seven hundred and fifty copies of the text book entitled, 'Merlin's Pledge in Relation to the Creation of the Wizengamot and the Ministry of Magic', were delivered to Hogwarts this morning. The instructions I sent with them was that there was a copy to be given to all of the staff and every student, it's only a suggestion but if you were to be back there in time for lunch, the students could be given this afternoon and tomorrow to read and discuss it."

Then he whispered to Minerva, "Do you think that they are toothless yet?"

The Headmistress smiled and nodded then he continued, "Sorry Kingsley, but between you and Arthur your copies have to be distributed to Ministry personnel and the new Wizengamot members, for that matter the copy's the protectors and I are using are over two hundred years old and are probably priceless. So I will need five copies and each of the witches will need a dozen, Arthur, you Kingsley, all of the Aurors will need them, spread out the rest through the Ministry and maybe a dozen or two to St Mungo's. Anyone else who wants a copy should be able to buy it in Flourish and Blott's if they can't…if someone lets me know I will skin them, they were given fair warning."

The White Wizard appeared to have finished so Hermione came forward and said, "Before we go I should like to ask Griselda Marchbanks a question and Mme Marchbanks you may remain seated whilst you answer; I know that your head works well but I thought that your legs might appreciate it.

"We saw you in the bookshop yesterday morning with your great, great, great grand daughter and I wondered if you wish to continue in your position with the Wizengamot or would you prefer to have your…slightly younger grand daughter stand in you stead?"

Griselda and her grand daughter could be seen whispering and then the old lady slowly stood, "Ceinmyg Rhudd Dewines; see I still remember the old ways, it means 'Honourable Red Witch', and I know that the Red Witch understood exactly what I said. I am honoured that you should give me such consideration and my great, great, great grand daughter will be pleased to stand in my stead; if I might be so bold as to suggest that I would be willing to accompany her to the meetings at first, to help her find her way."

Smiling Hermione replied, "We thank you, and accept your offer of help. Duw Bendithio Chi."

"What did she say?" whispered Griselda's great grand daughter, none too quietly.

"She said 'God Bless You'." The older woman said smiling and patting her great, great, great grand daughter on the knee; virtually the whole room had heard the exchange.

Harry said, "We have been ordered to leave now but we would like to talk to Ginny Weasley privately for a few minutes, if she would come with us."

Narcissa stood and asked, "My liege, might I also be permitted to talk to you?"

Harry agreed and so Narcissa and her daughter in law, Minerva, Ginny and the newlyweds left the room together; requesting they form a circle with linked hands Harry took them off to the garden of his house in Chudley Salterton.

**> **

"What was that?" Ginny asked because three of them were looking puzzled at the method of transport.

"We would not be allowed to tell you if we knew, but being as we don't know anyway, we can't tell you." Hermione looked strange and continued, "Did that make sense?"

The Blue Witch had a small smile as she said, "You're beginning to sound like Dumbledore did when he didn't want to answer a question but he was being forced to, but keep practicing and you'll get there."

This time all the others giggled, and then Ginny became serious and she continued, "Ok so we are still speaking but where are we otherwise?"

His new wife smiled at him, "I know that you are always more than fare, it's your way; so you do what you think is right."

Harry looked embarrassed, "I thought that you might like to keep living in this house in Chudley Salterton and I was going to put five hundred Galleons a week into your Gringotts account, and you obviously won't be allowed access to any of my other accounts."

The red head looked pensive, "I didn't really want to keep living here…we were here…you know?"

He didn't really but he offered, "The only other house is Grimmauld Place and I didn't think that you would want to live there and as you must realise I am now also responsible for Narcissa, because I have accepted her as a Black; I don't think that she would be very happy in a practically muggle house."

Somewhat sadly Harry thought Narcissa said, "Honestly I know virtually nothing about the muggle world or muggles; but if Ginny will teach me I will be happy to live anywhere. Also my liege; my daughter in law's maiden name was Olga Petrova, Lucius had to go all of the way to Russia before he found someone who he considered to be pure blooded enough and who would also marry his son.

"Needless to say, now she understands just what the Malfoy name stands for she does not wish to keep it and her son hates both of his names."

Hermione wanted to get Harry into bed and all of these negotiations were delaying her so she said, "Harry is very reasonable Narcissa, what would you suggest? Similar to what he said to me, what would you really like to happen?"

The older woman believed that if she asked for too much she could finish up with nothing; so she said, "I would like Olga and her son's last name changed to Black and Scorpius' first name to be changed to something suiting a Black…although it might be easier to just add another name in front of his current one. We will be happy to go along with any living arrangements you might wish to make for us."

Harry also wanted to get away with Hermione and he said, "Ok both of them can join the House of Black and I believe that Regulus is quite a common Black family first name, he may add that or replace his other with it as is possible."

Olga and Narcissa were both smiling and the Headmistress said, "With my position in the school and as the Blue Witch it will be quite straight forward for me to do all of that for you, and I suggest that you two come to visit Scorpius, sorry Regulus soon.

"Harry don't forget that Al hates the first names inflicted on him by his mother and grandfather and when he hears about Scorpius he will probably want something done about his as well." So after telling the other two Protectors that she knew how to reach Caer Myrddin the Headmistress disappeared silently no doubt to her beloved school.

"Right I have made a decision." Harry said after a few moments thought, "I will give both of you Black ladies a stipend of five hundred Galleons a month until such times as you decide to marry again, if you ever do, I will not try to arrange a marriage for either of you it will be solely your own decision. As for living arrangements, first off all three of you will live here in Chudley Salterton for four weeks, during which time you will all visit Grimmauld Place and decide between you where you want to live long term. I don't care if it's one or both of the houses and let's face it there is enough space for you all to live in either place, and hardly ever meet each other. It is not my way to force anyone to do anything unless I have to, however if I have to, be assured that I will."

Narcissa and Olga respectfully bowed their head's, and then curtseying said, "Thank you my liege."

Ginny was pouting with puppy dog eyes and a tear had appeared in the corner of one eye, Ginny wanted her own way and Harry hadn't asked her what she wanted. His ex-wife didn't know it but he had absolutely no intension of ever asking her exactly what she wanted and if she was to marry again her allowance would be cut in half.

Hermione thought that Ginny was being quite selfish and having been married to him she also knew how to push Harry's buttons so she was going to put a stop to it, "Look Ginny Harry is giving you about the same amount of money as your dad will earn in his new job, and he has offered you somewhere nice to live. We are going on honeymoon." She took his hand and the pair had simply disappeared.

Much to Ginny's chagrin Narcissa said, "I think that they make a wonderful couple.

Minerva McGonagall was not used to being accosted by two first year Gryffindor students as soon as she entered the Great Hall at lunch time; neither was she used to them not immediately doing what they were told.

**> **

"Go and eat your lunch, I have a lot of announcements to make." She told had them.

"We're not interested in the stupid old Wizengamot." The young boy said.

The girl continued with, "Did they get married?"

What with one thing and another it had been quite an eventful morning and she had half forgotten what was quite possibly the most important thing in the world to these two delightful young Gryffindors.

She smiled and told them happily, "Yes they did."

There was a squeal of "Thank you!" as they bounded away.

I'm glad Severus isn't here, she thought, he would have wanted to take house points; foolish, foolish man.

**> **

The pair had arrived in a bedroom and Hermione had started giggling and after kissing her, Harry asked, "Where are we?"

"We are in my bedroom at my parents' house." She answered, pushing him towards the bed.

The bedroom door opened and Jane (Hermione's mother) said, "I heard the noise and thought it might be you; but why is Harry with you?"

Hermione groaned, "Bother! I thought that you would be in work. This is going to take hours."

**The End (For Now) **

**Authors Comments;**

First I must apologise for the things that I hated about book seven, which couldn't think of a way of changing.

Snape throughout Harry's knowledge of him was a total arole and I believe that there would be six feet of snow in hell before Harry would inflict any of his children with his name, (there would only have to be five feet before he called one Albus as a first name). Also in the time scale covered by this story I didn't have the opportunity to make clear my displeasure at Snape's apparent forgiveness by the wizarding world and the thought of him and Lilly having been something of friends makes me question her (Lilly's) supposed intelligence.

Also I do not disapprove of HP-GW as such; however besides liking happy Harry, you might have noticed in my other stories that I also like Hermione to be happy, she will never be happy with Ron and this was the only way I could think of to make Hermione happy; so my apologies to HP-GW shippers.

Over the course of the books JKR has proved time and again that she has very little idea of what makes for successful interpersonal relationships, it is doubtful that either Harry or Hermione would have been friends with Ron by the end of their forth year.

No apologies however to those of you who think that Ron, at any time in canon, has been anything other than short tempered, rude, self centred, bad mannered and it mainly comes down to his laziness, greed and jealousy.

When I started, this story was intended as a two thousand word one shot; as it is it has finished up at well over twenty thousand words, so the whole style might appear to be hurried in places. Short of a complete rewrite I don't know quite what I can do about that.

I do expect some flack for the ending; however, what it does do is give a lot of scope as to which way the story can be taken forward if I ever decide to do so.

**PLEASE REVIEW**

**TTFN UdderPD **


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer; **J. K. Rowling owns the Harry Potter Universe all other claimants to anything to do with the H.P. story are simply hangers on to her glory. I thank her for allowing us mere mortals to play in her world and I promise that while I have Harry in my care nothing too bad will happen to him.

**Authors Note. **This vignette is an extension of 'H.P. Where There's the Will' which is, of course, required reading; an illuminating letter from Hogwarts Headmistress to the new Mr and Mrs Potter.

**Snape's Comeuppance. **

"Harry!" Hermione called, "We've a letter from Hogwarts, come and read it with me."

The newly married couple read the letter together in their family room at Merlin's castle.

**OxO**

**Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.**

_**From the desk of, Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress; the Blue Witch.**_

Dear Harry and Hermione,

The first part of this letter is mainly for Harry.

Something has been niggling off and on at the back of my mind for many years and the vehemence of your comment about a month ago; re; Albus Severus not liking his names, reminded me, so I decided to see if I could do something about it.

Let me start at the beginning.

As you well know, towards the end of the war things were chaotic; especially around the time you collected the memory from Severus and then went to confront Voldemort; very few people actually saw Severus' memory and unfortunately I was not one of them.

My curiosity having once again been piqued, I took the liberty of retrieving the memory from the Hogwarts archive and reviewing it for myself; as I watched it I must admit to having been confused.

The Snape family as you know are muggles and they appear to have always come from a village of the same name in North Yorkshire. Spinners End where the family lived and he grew up, is actually in what is now a rundown part of the village the family having come upon hard times, and his father was a rather drunken, dour muggle and they did not travel.

On the other hand your mother grew up in the Northern part of Llanishen a rather pleasant suburb of Cardiff in South Wales; it is about two hundred and fifty miles from North Yorkshire. Needless to say there didn't appear to be any way Lilly and Severus could have constantly played together as children; indeed there wasn't.

During your parents time in Hogwarts Professor Slughorn forced Lilly and Severus to work together in the potions dungeon, but outside of that I never once saw any interaction between the pair. As you probably know I have always kept an eye on my favourite students and your mother was one of those, as of course were both of you. Also by the beginning of their forth year Lilly and her best friend Alice Jenkins, (eventually to marry Frank Longbottom and become Neville's mother,) were almost constantly with Remus, Sirius, your father and the other one; and there is no way that Severus would hang around those four.

Consequently by the end of my viewing I was even more confused, it has always been my understanding that Pensieve memories could not be altered and were therefore always true.

Being my age does not have many advantages but one of them is that over the years I have met and taught a great many people, one of them is the current Ministry expert for authenticating Pensieve memories and such things. Unsurprisingly he actually works in the Department of Mysteries, so I arranged to have lunch with him a couple of days ago, to do his job he also has to be a psychoanalyst and I must admit that I am amazed by some of the things I learned from him.

It appears that the donor's state of mind can influence the memory being extracted, and if the donor is obsessed with the subject the memory can be modified or completely fabricated ideas will be considered real.

We entered Snape's memory together and the major thing my friend then showed me was how to recognise that effect and in relation to your mother, this is what Snape has given you, his own deluded version of events that never happened in reality.

When we examined his memories of the two young girls playing in a park we could see where Snape's imagination has superimposed your mother and her sister's faces on to two young girls he must have watched when he was young. Parts of the memory, like the section of Lilly discovering that she was a witch were completely fabricated, we could tell this from the lack of detail in the background. All of his memories of your mother from school were part of his twisted personal fantasy; as was his blaming your father for the physical non fulfilment of what can best be described as his demented ravings.

His memories relating to the headmaster and to Voldemort are as far as we can determine reasonably accurate, but then none of us had any reason to doubt those memories any way and they did help you against Voldemort. However when we considered his actions in relation to his perceived mental delusions we could only conclude that his motives were always entirely selfish.

Snape did not want anything other than to possess your mother and he saw joining Voldemort as a way of bringing this about so when the Dark Lord was forced to kill her in order to reach you Snape wanted revenge. He could not gain this alone so he immediately decided to switch sides and try to join Dumbledore; whether or not it would have been a relief when he was accepted no one will ever know.

I am uncertain as to whether these matters have ever troubled you and if they have I hope that this will help to put your mind at rest; it will be my pleasure to show both of you how we have reached these conclusions.

Now I will move on to something slightly happier.

Harry's son Albus Severus Potter is no more; I did say that it was happier so he is obviously not dead.

As he and we previously agreed he has very happily become Sirius Albus Potter and almost immediately has refused to answer to his friends as anything else other than Padfoot, and I hope that we haven't unleashed a pranking monster.

Also, simply for your information Regulus Black appears to be a lot happier and is settling well into his new identity, it wouldn't have been much comfort to his father or grandfather that he was sorted into Hufflepuff.

That is all for now and I will see you both in about a week.

Fondest regards,

**Minerva McGonagall. **

**OxO**

Harry sat contemplating the Headmistress's letter for a few minutes and then he said, "I haven't thought specifically about all of this for years, actually I think that I have deliberately avoided thinking about it. Now I am sort of being forced to think about it and I realise that it has always been worrying me at the back of my mind, mainly that my mum might have found Snivelus attractive in any way." He smiled at her happily so she kissed him and he continued, "In its own way what is almost as good is that he really was what we always thought he was, the ultimate evil, twisted, greasy git and only a hero in his own mind."

She kissed him thoroughly and admitted, "I didn't know that about Pensieve memories either…so now that you know that Snape's memories are a complete load of old cods wallop, are you willing to review them with me and get a lesson from Minerva?" He smiled and nodded so she started kissing him again, much the same way as before.

"For the greater good of course." He said grinning as he kissed her in return, passionately.

"Help!" Hugo's voice rang through the family wing of Merlin's Castle, "They're playing kissy kissy again."

**Authors Note:** I see this as yet another wrong put to rights, if you can think of any more that require rectification let me know.

**PLEASE REVIEW. **


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